The Weirdest Things to Ever Happen in Chicago

Chicago is the home of the deep dish pizza. The Chicago Style Hot Dog. The Cubs. The Bears, The Blackhawks. Chicago can be a pretty interesting place at times. Sometimes our weirdness as Chicagoans gets overlooked. Here are the weirdest things to ever happen in Chicago.

2004 – When Dave Matthews Band emptied their crap on a passing boat.

Consequence of Sound

Never forget. Dave Matthews Band tour bus was driving over the Chicago River, and at Kinzie, unloaded 800lbs of human feces on people passing by in a boat. To the bands credit, they did not know that the driver did this, and DMB donated $50K to the Chicago Park District, and Chicago River.

The time a man died from eating too much ice cream.

Time Out Chicago

1892. Simpler times in Chicago. Thrillist writes, “a 21-year-old Frenchman named Gombien Jean* emigrated to Chicago and took a job at the Leland Hotel. While working in the hotel’s pantry on his very first day, Jean got his very first taste of ice cream and quickly fell into a downward spiral of ice cream addiction that led to his untimely death five days later.” Quite an interesting scenario and definitely one of the weirdest things to ever happen in Chicago.

When construction workers in Chicago caused $1 Billion in damages.

Wikipedia

During a construction circuit in Chicago. Workers accidentally punctured a hole in the ceiling of a tunnel under the Chicago river. This caused over $1 billion in damages, and flooded many local business basements and homes.

The time in the early 1900s that Chicago waiters/servers poisoned low tipping customers

This is shockingly true. Let’s just say going out to get a drink in Chicago in the early 1900s was a dangerous thing, This resulted in at least 3 deaths, and the culprit behind the ordeal was a man named Mickey Finn, who was irate that his customers were not tipping well. Other waiters followed suit. Roughly about 100 waiters participated in these poisonings.

When Chicago’s mayor was a buddy of Al Capone who frequented brothels

Yep. You read that right. The mayor of Chicago was once a loyal friend to Al Capone, and a man who frequented brothels publicly. Big Bill Thompson. If you think we have corruption now…how do you think it was in the Capone era?

The murder case that was solved by a dead woman

In 1977 a woman was found stabbed in her apartment. the apartment was found to have been torched. For months, no one was able to get any leads or any information on the murder. A man named Dr. Jose Chua contacted the police because he felt his wife was possessed by the murdered woman, Teresita Basa. The wife had also worked with Teresita. Everything his “possessed” wife said was true, and turned out. The murder was solved.